Tangney said that the hoax was a “tremendous waste of taxpayer resources,” and also endangered law enforcement officers. Earlier this week, it was reported that two police officers responding to the scene were injured in a car accident near the Southern State Parkway in North Bellmore, according to police officials.

Tangney explained that investigators determined that the call reporting the shooting was what’s known as “swatting,” when a gamer falsely reports a serious incident that prompts an emergency response.

He explained that while police believed early on that the call was a hoax, “We take it very [seriously] from the beginning — we don’t take any shortcuts, we don’t endanger the officers, we don’t endanger the public. We do everything by a strict code.”

Tangney said he believes the rival player managed to obtain Castillo’s Internet Protocol and home addresses during the game.

“We’re treating [Castillo] as the victim 100 percent, and he has been very forthcoming,” Stark said. “He and his mother have given us everything we’ve requested.”

Police do not yet know who the caller was or where the call came from, but they said that he used Skype, the Internet phone service, to make the call to the Police Department’s regular number.

“It comes from an IP — so it’s not immediately traceable,” Tangney told the Herald last Tuesday, adding that the gamer could be “anywhere in the world.”

“For example, I’m looking at my phone right now and I can tell where you’re calling from, and we can trace the call,” Stark said. “When you call from a computer line … it’s not a real number that is traceable because you’re not using the phone line. We don’t necessarily have those types of sophisticated tools, so that’s why we’re working with Nassau County and the FBI.”

Stark added that the FBI’s resources, such as computer forensics, could potentially help locate the disgruntled gamer.

“They’re involved because right now, we may have some heavy duty subpoenas to determine which ever phone company or service provider it is that this call came through,” Stark said. “To my knowledge, so far they have not served any subpoenas.”

A spokesman for the United States Attorney’s Office declined to comment.